Arguably the two most powerful private enterprises in Pennsylvania anthracite country were the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Co. (LC&N) and the Delaware and Hudson Canal Co (D&H). Both companies were integrated vertically, meaning that they controlled, or attempted to control, all aspects of the commercial process, from mining to markets. The companies owned the coal lands, the railroads and the canals, even the rights to improve the local rivers and streams. They even sold their own coal to both consumers and factories.

A fierce rivalry developed. Once the LC&N built a switchback or gravity rail line from its mines at Summit Hill to Mauch Chunk, the executives at D&H vowed to construct one of their own. The D&H's gravity railroad from Archbald, near Carbondale, in Lackawanna County, to Honesdale in Wayne County, was the result. It ran for sixteen miles.

Hauling coal over Moosic Mountain, the highest elevation covered by the gravity railroad was about 2,000 feet by means of five planes. This and other gravity rail lines used wood tracks and cables to keep the large cars on course. The cars themselves were filled with coal on the way down – relying mainly on the force of gravity for their descent on the east side of the mountain to Honesdale. Mules, and then later steam engines, propelled them back to the various summits, which intersected with feeder lines directly to the mines.